Give Back This Month with Vitamin Angels & Vitamin World

Here at Vitamin World, health and wellness are our passion. Not only do we provide vitamins, minerals, and supplements to our fantastic customers, but we also get to educate and inspire.

To give back this holiday season, we’re partnering with the charity Vitamin Angels. Vitamin Angels was founded in 1994 with a mission:

To provide lifesaving vitamins to mothers and children under five at risk of malnutrition — reducing preventable illness, blindness, and death — to create a healthier world.

From now until December 31, 2016, when you visit Vitamin World in stores, you’ll have the opportunity to donate to this organization. Since 2008 (our first year partnering with Vitamin Angels) we’ve been able to help 10.8 million children with life-changing vitamins.

Vitamin World and Vitamin Angels have the ability to impact thousands of lives. Donate today!

“In a simple clinic in El Salvador, we met Virginia and her granddaughter, Heimy. Part of a scattering of concrete dwellings in a community known as the Libertad Residencial, this clinic provides medical care and vitamins to the local families.

While we conversed with Virginia, Heimy giggled and played at our feet. Much like any other two-year-old, Heimy loves to play with dolls, pretend to shop, and run to her heart’s content. We were surprised to learn that she had been born two months premature: an unfortunately common occurrence for women who do not have access to proper nutrition during pregnancy.

Virginia marveled at Heimy’s almost-tangible energy and added that, before she began taking daily multivitamins, Heimy wasn’t as social and had much less energy. Now, she is able to keep up with her other young family members, who also share Virginia’s home.

With eleven people in her home, Virginia works hard to keep her household in order. As the family matriarch, she sets careful expectations to maintain cleanliness, to encourage imaginative play, and to foster mutual respect between family members. While Virginia manages the home, Heimy’s mother provides financial support through her job as a waitress. Heimy’s father is not present and the family does not receive economic support from him.

Virginia takes pride in her ability to keep her large household fed. She provides a regular diet of plaintains, beans, tortillas, potatoes, cheese, and the occasional chicken for sustenance. Perishable food cannot be kept long, as the family does not have a refrigerator. Without fresh fruit or vegetables, Heimy benefits from daily multivitamins to fill any nutritional gaps.

Someday, Virginia hopes Heimy will attend school and enter a profession. To ensure that every member of her family has a healthy future, Virginia hopes to bring all of her grandchildren to the clinic. Through Heimy, she has firsthand seen how life-changing proper nutrition can be.

Heimy turned her bright face toward her grandmother and gave her a grin. Virginia welcomed her granddaughter into her arms, and expressed her gratitude for the people who have helped her family.

“You are making a difference,” she told us. When we meet healthy children like Heimy, it is a difference we can clearly see.”